Cairo: Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was on Saturday acquitted by a court which found him not guilty in the killing of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 revolution that toppled his nearly three decades-long rule, overturning an earlier ruling. Judge Mahmud Kamel al-Rashidi also acquitted Mubarak of corruption charges for exporting gas to Israel.
The court ruled that Mubarak’s seven former security commanders, including his former interior minister Habib al-Adly, were “innocent” in the killing of anti-government protesters during the 2011 revolution.
The 86-year-old, dressed in his trademark shades and wearing the blue clothes of a convict, was wheeled into the caged dock on an upright stretcher. His two sons were also acquitted from all corruption charges.
Mubarak and his co-defendants were found guilty in June 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The initial verdict was appealed successfully and a retrial began in April 2013.
He is serving a separate three-year prison term for embezzlement of public funds. Mubarak is serving the sentence at a military hospital on the southern outskirts of Cairo.
In May 2011, al-Adly was also convicted of money laundering and profiteering, for which he received a 12-year jail sentence.
The Court of Cassation overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial.
As with past trials, a number of Mubarak supporters were present in front of the court today, raising his photograph. Mubarak was found guilty in 2012 of the charge relating to killing protesters along with al-Adly, and sentenced to life in prison.
But in January 2013 the Court of Cassation upheld an appeal by them against their convictions on technical grounds and ordered a retrial. Mubarak was retried on charges of complicity in the killing of around 850 unarmed protesters during the January 2011 uprising that ended his nearly three decades-long rule. The retrial began in April 2013, and has been adjourned several times since.
Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal are currently serving four-year prison terms for embezzlement of state funds.
A Cairo court late in September delayed the final verdict in Mubarak’s case, with the presiding judge saying that he had not finished reviewing evidence amounting to 160,000 pages for health reasons.
Mubarak ruled Egypt for almost 30 years before being ousted in the uprising. He stood down after weeks of unrest ended in the deaths of hundreds of protesters across the country. Mubarak’s Islamist successor Mohammed Morsi was himself removed last year by then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is now president, and put on trial along with hundreds of other Islamists. (PTI)
